This
is David Gilmour playing with The Who performing songs
from Quadrophenia. David plays guitar and sings on Dirty
Jobs, and plays guitar on Love Reign O'er Me..What we
have here is an edited version of the complete performance
of Quadrophenia.
Roger Daltrey, who as The Who's former lead singer once
helped set new standards of on-stage bad behaviour, said
he was nervous about going back on stage again. "It's
a bit like going to the dentist. It's good once you've
done it," he told a news conference.
Pete Townshend, the band's guitarist, described the concert
as "a chance to do something more adventurous than strum
on my own". He rejected suggestions that the event was
aimed at cashing in on the popularity of the current wave
of British rock bands such as Oasis, Blur and Pulp. "It
is not trying to capitalise on what other young bands
are doing. We are not trying to compete," he said.
The concert is expected to be the biggest one-day event
since the 1978 concert at Blackbushe, near Sandhurst,
Berkshire, at which Clapton and Dylan both performed.
It will be the main event of this year's National Music
Festival and is timed to coincide with the eve of the
final in Britain of the Euro '96 football championships.
This was Pete Townshend and friends, performing the first
full-length live rendition of The Who's other rock opera,
Quadrophenia.
Townshend was accompanied by the other two surviving members
of The Who and Zak "son-of-Ringo" Starkey on drums, as
well as various other musicians and celebrities. Among
them was the newsreader Trevor McDonald, who played a
newsreader, to huge cheers - I never realised he was quite
so popular.
The music was, in parts, magnificent, the highlights being
the opening number, The Real Me, and a blistering 5.15,
sung with leonine ferocity by Roger Daltrey, his left
eye covered by a patch after a collision in rehearsal
involving a microphone stand and Gary Glitter.
